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Media use and excess body weight among women in Nigeria: a cross-sectional study
  1. Bishwajit Ghose1,
  2. Sanni Yaya2
  1. 1 Institute of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  2. 2 Faculté de Médecine, Université de Parakou, Parakou, Benin
  1. Correspondence to Dr Bishwajit Ghose; brammaputram{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Objectives To investigate the (1) time trends in body mass index (BMI) and (2) relationship between media use and body weight status among adult women in Nigeria. We hypothesise that higher frequency of media use is associated with higher likelihood of being overweight and obesity among adult women.

Study design Cross-sectional.

Setting Urban and rural settings in Nigeria.

Participants Adult non-pregnant women aged between 15 and 49 years.

Methods Data were derived from Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in 2003, 2008 and 2013. The outcome variable was excess body weight (overweight and obesity), and main explanatory variables were frequency of reading newspaper, listening to radio and television (TV) viewing. Datasets were merged to perform pooled analysis, and were analysed using bivariate and multivariable regression techniques.

Results Of the 69 401 participants, 16.2% had a BMI of 25.0–29.9 kg/m2 (95% CI 15.8 to 16.6) and 6.6% had >30 kg/m2 (95% CI 6.3 to 6.9). Between 2003 and 2013, the prevalence of overweight women increased by 4.1%, and that of obesity by 2.2%. Overall, radio was the most popular media followed by TV and newspaper. Respectively, 15.6% and 11.7% of the women reported using radio and TV almost every day and 30.6% and 25.1% at least once a week. In multivariable analysis, watching TV almost every day and at least once a week were associated with, respectively, 1.6 and 1.2 times higher odds of being overweight, and 2.7 and 1.5 times higher odds of being obese compared with those who never used radio. Similarly, significant associations were observed for newspaper and radio use as well.

Conclusion The prevalence of overweight and obesity is noticeably high among Nigerian women and has been increasing steadily over the past decade. A statistically significant association exists between BMI and the use of newspaper, radio and TV. Further studies are required to develop a better understanding of the mechanisms that underlie this relationship.

  • body weight
  • media use
  • overweight and obesity

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See:©http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-020802

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors BG was responsible for data collection and conceptualisation of the study. BG and SY contributed to data analysis, interpretation and writing the manuscript. Both authors gave approval for submitting the final version of the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Not required.

    • Ethics approval All DHS surveys are approved by ICF international and a review board in the implementing country.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement All data used in this study are available through the DHS website on registration (https://dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.cfm).